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A group of Peking University and Guanghua MBA students met with Warren Buffett in Omaha!

Released on: 2017-02-17

February 17, 2017. Omaha, Nebraska – Two of our MBA students from Class of ’16, Jonathan Ly and Li Rui, were selected among 150 students from wider Peking University to represent the school, alongside 18 other students, and attend the annual lunch event organized by the legendary investor, Mr. Warren Buffett.

Accompanied by Guanghua investment Professor Jeffrey Towson, our students not only had the opportunity to meet Warren Buffett, but also engage in a private Q&A session with him as well as visit three of his portfolio companies. Even Professor Jeffrey Towson, who has read over a hundred of Buffett’s interviews throughout his career, was still surprised and in awe of some of the things that Mr. Buffett said during the private meeting. A truly remarkable person!

Read Jonathan’s and Rui’s comments and thoughts below about the once-in-a-lifetime experience (for more detailed insights, check the links at the end of the page):

I am very honored to be selected one of the 20 students from Guanghua School of Management, Peking University to have lunch with Mr. Warren Buffet on 17 February 2017 at the Anthony’s Steak House in Omaha. It was the first time a university from mainland China was invited.

The lunch session began with a two hour Q&A session where students from each of the 8 participating business schools got the chance to ask questions. I found some of the answers are particularly enlightening, for example Mr. Buffet thinks that the best investment is to invest in yourself. In addition to the lunch, we also visited three of the portfolio companies of Berkshire Hathaway.

As a business student, it was defnitely a dream come to true for me to see and talk with such a lengendary firgure.It was definitely a memorable moment in my MBA life here in Guanghua, and I am thankful for the opportunity provided.

Li Rui, 2016 IMBA Candidate

Every year, Warren Buffett organizes a lunch with 160 students coming from 8 different American universities. Nevertheless, sometimes Warren Buffett chooses to invite one foreign university amongst the 8 universities like Berkeley, Chicago Booth or the University of Creighton in Omaha.

HKUST, Oxford, Cambridge or some universities in Brazil have already joined this annual meeting and sent 20 students each to attend the event but never has Mainland China been represented before.

But this year, Mainland China and Guanghua School of Management, Peking University have been elected by Mr. Buffett to join this meeting for the first time. We were 150 students from the MBA, the Master of Finance or the Undergraduate Program to apply for the 20 seats and I managed to make it through the selection.

Thank you again Guanghua for this amazing opportunity to meet Mr. Buffett, the sage of Omaha, ranked Forbes #3 in 2017 and legendary investor. Thank you again Mr. Buffett for the time you gave us at the Q&A session and at the lunch and thank you again for sharing with us your lifetime story and experience.

Thanks to Jeffrey Towson, our amazing teacher for accompanying us and leading us during this day trip at Omaha.

Special thanks to Robert Cheng Bao for organizing the whole event and coordinating our visit with Warren Buffett's team at Berkshire Hathaway.

Special thanks also to Mr. Jeffrey Towson and all the team of students for sharing their notes in English and Chinese and on which I base the following first part of the Q&A session.